Saudi women can now stay in hotels alone

Yahoo! News reported Women in Saudi Arabia can now stay in a hotel or a furnished apartment without a male guardian,

Welcome to the 31st century. But since they cannot drive a car, how will they get to the hotel?

according to a government decision that comes as the country faces increasing criticism for its severe restrictions on women. The daily Al-Watan, which is deemed close to the Saudi government, reported Monday that the ministry issued a circular to hotels asking them to accept lone women — as long as their information is sent to a local police station.

So the police do have to be notified.

The decision was adopted after a study conducted by the Interior Ministry, the Supreme Commission of Tourism and the religious police authority known as the Commission for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice.

Also known as the idiots that forced girls to die in a burning building because their heads were not covered.

Saudi women, under strict Islamic law, suffer severe restrictions on daily life: They are not allowed to be anywhere with an unrelated man, cannot drive, appear before a judge without a male representative, or travel abroad without a male guardian's permission.

But they can now stay in a hotel room, alone, as long as the police are informed.

The paper interviewed some Saudi women who complained that they had been severely inconvenienced by the rules banning them from staying in the hotels alone. It quoted a woman identified as saying that she once arrived late at night at King Fahd airport on an internal flight and was denied a hotel room because she was alone.

I hope she had a man's permission to fly on the plane.

Another woman, Fatima Ibrahim, said her son-in-law quarreled with his wife and daughters and threw them out of the house. When they tried to get a hotel room, they were asked to get a permission from the police.

And now the police will just be informed autmatically. How civilized.

Sweetness & Light blogged In view of recent developments in our own country, however, let’s hope they don’t get carried away and allow women the vote.

They might even want to run for President.